Back to France

We had gone over to Green Island to get a good angle on the wind for our sail down to France...er, Guadeloupe. The normal Caribbean trade winds blow from roughly ENE. What was our dismay when we awoke to find the breeze blowing solidly from the south? In the event, it wasn't all that dreadful. The wind never became much more than a pleasant light air and the seas were small, almost flat. WW turned on the engines, gave the autopilot a heading for Port Louis on Grand Terre in Guadeloupe and we lounged our way across the passage.

We tested an anchorage outside the town's enclosed harbour, but found it both rolly and with poor hold on a weedy bottom, so we moved inside. We dropped anchor just inside the breakwater and put out a stern anchor to keep us neatly out of the way of fishing boats and other users of the harbour. Then we launched Boffo and headed ashore.

Our piloting guide had said there was a fish market nearby and a couple of locals were happy to point us in the right direction; just the other side of the anchorage. WW was delighted to find the red hinds (a kind of grouper) he so enjoys.

Fish for sale at the Port Louis fish market.
The triggerfish (big feller on the right) has been skinned,
we're not sure why (poisonous skin?),
but whenever we saw one, this was the case.

He requested three of them and then we watched as a chap started to clean them. The tool used for scaling is a stick with four or five beer bottle caps screwed onto it in a row. Very effective.

Scaling our red hind at the Port Louis fish market.

While WW waited for the fish, the rest of us proceeded on a short ramble into the attractive and very quiet little town.

Church, Port Louis, Grande Terre, Guadeloupe

WW soon caught up with us. He had a bag full of fish as well as all the bits and pieces (excluding gills and guts) needed to make a delicious fish broth. We'd pretty much strolled the entire length of the town, so we headed back to Boffo and, thence, to Django and RPs. Dinner was red hind grilled "en papillote" with onion, garlic, green pepper and tomato. And very nice too. While WW tended his grill, I got the inevitable fumet cooking and was vouchsafed a couple of red hind filets for the next day's matelote stew.

Fishermen on the breakwater at the Port Louis anchorage.

All photos in this post are kindness of Frisha, Whit and their able little Canon.